Okay so here it is the first release, Im opting for more of a soft entry here because this mode is still in prototype Im not working off any preexisting formula so I admit there will be issues not just with bugs but with the flow of the mode.

If you have any issues feel free to post them in this thread, I will be keeping this mode updated as I work on my mutator pack. Im mainly wanting to get an idea if people find this fun and interesting, one plus I find is everyone is typically alive all the time so its a nice community feeling mode rather than strict competitive.

Upon release, Unreal Tournament 2004 was met with widespread critical acclaim. Several critics praised the unique, fast-paced, fun and challenging nature of the game as its main selling points, while fans touted the post-release support and extensive modding capabilities.

Comment

If I understand correctly it's kind of similar to a Zombie/Infection game type but where the zombie team can be eliminated ?

And how would you prevent the game to end too quickly with the first "it" getting immediatly and utterly obliterated right from the start ?

Aside from this concern it seems like it could be a fun mode.

Over here we call it Manhunt

As for your concern, perhaps this gamemode can take a few ideas from the mutant gamemode?
For those of you who don't know, mutant was a gamemode where to win you had to get x number of kills as a mutant, to become a mutant, you had to kill a mutant
There was only one mutant, and the mutant would have infinite ammo and increased speed and hp, however, they would slowly lose health unless they killed players, which would have a vampiric effect

I personally don't think this gamemode will have much in store for it this way, as all players can move at exactly the same speed, my suggestion would be to equip everyone with hammers/pistons/whatever they're called in this UT, and remove self/fall damage, then set hp to 1
The premise of the game would then be for "taggers" to then catch everyone by pancaking them

This, with advanced air control, would require a lot more skill to traverse places faster than being caught
Optionally, "taggers" have 100hp and a shock rifle only with infinite ammo, to tag someone they would have to hit runners with a shock combo, which can obviously be countered by the piston secondary fire

Comment

And how would you prevent the game to end too quickly with the first "it" getting immediatly and utterly obliterated right from the start ?

This is a really good question and all will be revealed soon, I must admit though these gamemodes are just something I want to try, I havent fully tested out the ideas so I will make some alterations along the way. This will be an issue for this mode overall is it might end too quickly so Im willing to work on a solution to that if it turns out to be the case, it could be that this mode just requires higher player counts, something more like the crazy FFA sizes. Ive been testing it with 4 and 6 which work okay but 10 on larger maps is probably an ideal pace. If all the good players ended up on the it team quick its probably all over.

Upon release, Unreal Tournament 2004 was met with widespread critical acclaim. Several critics praised the unique, fast-paced, fun and challenging nature of the game as its main selling points, while fans touted the post-release support and extensive modding capabilities.

Comment

I'll give some crazy ideas to spice up the thing here. It's not necessarly doable, it's essentially to see what cool ideas would be interesting for this game mode.
Instead of a standard Humans VS Mutant (I'll call the "it" like that until we find a proper name), why not place 3 teams actually ? Two Humans and one Mutant. The Mutant start indeed alone and should "infect" all the Humans. Humans actually revives indefinitely, but Mutants have a limited amount of lifes (1, 2, 3... have to figure out). Humans plays like the regular UT TDM (start with only Enforcer and IH, gain one point by killing each others, etc...), however the game immediatly end if all the Mutants are killed. In this case the Human team with the most points win. Also the killing a Mutant rewards more points.

One random player start alone as the Mutant (maybe more depending of the total number of players). Aside from the limited lifes he's also unable to regen via health packs or conventional ways. He however possess advantages over the Humans. These advantages can be (tell me what you prefer) :
-Improved base stats (faster movements, higher health, etc...)
-Same effect, but with unlimited use, as the bonus items (UDamage, Invisibility, Berserk, etc...)
-More or all weapons at the start (but maybe unable to get ammo normally, like health)
-Vampirism (Health on hit) or Corpse feeding (Health on kill, far greater amount)
And of course he is able to convert Humans, but only if he actually kill them. So even if he do 99% of the damage, if he does not kill, he will not get the reward ! So preying at the start might be more efficient than full frontal assault.

Here's also a few possible variations :
-"I'm the Alpha !", only the starting mutants possess all the benefits, and his spawns get only part of these powers.
-"Choose your strain.", you have to choose with which Mutant powers you want to start with (quick exemple, the Ravager : 110 health, berserk, got Mini. Or the Hunter : 80 health, +25 faster movements, Sniper rifle).
-"Your creature is evolving !", each time you kill you can pick a new perk, but you start with less perks than the normal mode.

Here's my rambling ! Don't hesitate to take what you like or add more neat ideas.

Comment

I got to this point and thought to myself, there is a race in UT that does have resurrection technology so that seems like the obvious choice no? I actually wanted to use team skins for one side and DM skins for the other but Im kinda liking this train of thought with the different races. This way the mutants dont actually mutate they just become necris versions of themselves.

Great discussion guys Im reading over all of it and I'll credit anyone whos ideas I contribute thats no worries I do have some of my own but Im enjoying being on the sidelines here hehe

Upon release, Unreal Tournament 2004 was met with widespread critical acclaim. Several critics praised the unique, fast-paced, fun and challenging nature of the game as its main selling points, while fans touted the post-release support and extensive modding capabilities.

Comment

I got to this point and thought to myself, there is a race in UT that does have resurrection technology so that seems like the obvious choice no? I actually wanted to use team skins for one side and DM skins for the other but Im kinda liking this train of thought with the different races. This way the mutants dont actually mutate they just become necris versions of themselves.

Great discussion guys Im reading over all of it and I'll credit anyone whos ideas I contribute thats no worries I do have some of my own but Im enjoying being on the sidelines here hehe

Well actually when I was saying Humans I was thinking the "uninfected" teams, I wasn't strictly on the human race only.
It's just that until we come with a better name it's an easy way to identify the different teams (by copying the classic formula in other games). I would like to let the players keep their skin choices, but if it is necessary for visibility and clarity purpose to restrain them then I'm ok with that.
But we should experiment with just classic team colours (Red VS Blue VS... Green ?).

I wish I could give you a hand with this, but since I don't understand how the BP works (and also I lack any kind of prog skills) I will not be of much use. But I will certainly test the mode when it is available.

Upon release, Unreal Tournament 2004 was met with widespread critical acclaim. Several critics praised the unique, fast-paced, fun and challenging nature of the game as its main selling points, while fans touted the post-release support and extensive modding capabilities.

Comment

Tested it quickly vs bots, here's the issues I found so far :
-Does not end when the "it" is killed. Instead the roles are swapped : the normal become the "it", and the "it" die and respawn as a normal.
-I don't know if it's related, but once the match has ended it stays on the end screen menu (the team display, player score, etc..).
-How is the player selection working ? Cause each time I launched a match I started as the "it".

Then I have thing that are more about balance/gameplay/QoL :
-I think the humans that get infected should first die and respawn, instead of just turning in the "it".
-Better indication when you turned in the "it", right now I was a little confused when swapping beetwen "it" and normal (even if you aren't supposed to turn normal again )
-The match seems rather short, there's eventually two ways to solve this. Make multiple rounds, or simply wait until the mode is more refined and with more addition so one match stay longer (yeah this isn't really explicit...). Like the humans and the "it" aren't as easy to kill or infect.

I don't know what you planned or what was intended, so it's possible that you're actually working on some of these issues.

Comment

Okay so I'll answer about the "it" person swapping, thats intentional so the game doesnt end too quickly, I figure the end condition being all players caught makes it fun and last longer. I could make a win condition to end it sooner, if all players have been "it" atleast once and no one managed to tag everyone.

I agree about the messaging, this is the first time Ive been able to playtest it to this depth, I pretty much released it as soon as it was reasonably playable. That is why I left it so the "it" player actually dies now, this way when swapping "it" its always a death so its more visible, with tagging its a possibility as well but I thought on the spot its not bad cuz they keep their loadout (except armour).

The transition is hard because the only thing that really changes is the HUD so I'll work on improving that, the reason I like the quick switch is because it doesnt stop the flow of combat and it does add abit of confusion when acouple of players turn at once and then attack their team mates.

I have noticed a bug when youre "it" and it gets taken from you, sometimes you keep respawing and changing teams Im not sure why yet. I can also make the intro smoother too, Im going to try to get the "it" selection to happen on the scoreboard you see before the match starts, I think thats the best idea. Thanks heaps for the feedback, updates soon

Upon release, Unreal Tournament 2004 was met with widespread critical acclaim. Several critics praised the unique, fast-paced, fun and challenging nature of the game as its main selling points, while fans touted the post-release support and extensive modding capabilities.

Upon release, Unreal Tournament 2004 was met with widespread critical acclaim. Several critics praised the unique, fast-paced, fun and challenging nature of the game as its main selling points, while fans touted the post-release support and extensive modding capabilities.

Comment

Well I indicated the swapping as it was contradictory with your initial rules.

I might make comparisons with the other zombie mods (like the ones in CS, or TF2). Indeed in these mods, once a human is infected, he immediatly turn into a zombie without the necessecity to die. But there's a lot of other effects to counter the surprising and panic effect on the group :
-They only have melee
-You generally have a recognizable and easily spottable indicator for the other members (a freaking loud scream)
-It's slower paced (movements are slowers, as well as attacks)
-Camping is favorised because of this slower pace

In something as frantic as UT, where movements and dodging is way more a key feature than these other games, it does not work as well to just suddenly turn rogue. Especially if you also keep all you loadout. A smart (and skilled) "it" can just HS an enemy behind a group, that will suddenly be infected and immediatly shoot rockets in his ally's backs. You hardly have any time to react when you're already focused with the "it". It doesn't feel really fair when something like that happens. I'm an average player, I would certainly not enjoy such a thing.

To make things a little more fair, try something like this :
-The "it" are stronger than the uninfected (more life, more weapons to start). We can figure out how to make it stronger in different ways without making it a one man army.
-You have like 10 seconds before the first "it" is selected, so humans can still prepare a little and found weapons before the hunt start.
-If a human get infected, it dies, but respawn with all the attributes (or eventually part of it) of the "it".
-If a "it" dies, it dies until the end of the round/match (personally I would prefer multiple rounds, so you don't have to sit for too long if you're killed right away).
Winning conditions are :
-Humans :
*Kill all the "it".
*Survive until the round end
-"It" :
*Infect all the humans before the time runs out

This are simple rules just to start off. With a solid base we can then expand further and find new ideas.

For the timer of a round (if you do that), I woud say 2-3 min max would be enough (not counting the warmup for humans).
And start with something simple for the transformation, a sound (eventually audible by anybody standing around the infected) and a little message in the center of the player screen should be enough.

Also just out of curiosity, why call it chaingang ?

Comment

Well the gamemode kinda comes from a variant of tag called chain tag where people have to join together with the "it" person, I was going to try that out so the infected would have to kinda bunch up vs the others who can roam abit more freely, gather more powerups etc.

Youre right about the sniper rifle being problematic, I hadnt considered if the "it" person is stacked or anything like that so I will have a think on everything youve written and continue working on the mode to refine some of the mechanics. Im trying to avoid making the characters too different because thats something thats problematic for arena games, I would like to try to keep it balanced within UT gameplay and lore if its possible

Upon release, Unreal Tournament 2004 was met with widespread critical acclaim. Several critics praised the unique, fast-paced, fun and challenging nature of the game as its main selling points, while fans touted the post-release support and extensive modding capabilities.

Comment

Honestly you shouldn't worry with lore. It's already a mess with all the differences beetwen the game, and this UT is still searching is direction. Just a focus on a fun gamemode, people will find out a story later on, maybe even do some custom model of their own.

For the balance that's why I suggested things that are already present in the game, like just more health and weapons, or the power up. They can give a simple differentiation beetwen two teams without overcomplicating the game as it stays in the range of UT gameplay. Like the Mutant gametype in UT2004.